How To Build A Top-Ranking Mobile App As A Newbie

Think it's impossible to rank at the top of the App Store after less than a year of teaching yourself to code? Then you haven't met Nick DiVona, who went from a development novice just tinkering around, to the co-founder of PokeRadar--an app that boasts over 15 million downloads and held the title of #2 free application on the App Store for two weeks.

Want to know how he did it? Read his story below.

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How to build a popular iOS app as a newbie.

Bradford: First, let's talk about how you got into coding. What was your motivation and how did you get started?

Divona: Sure, I wanted to learn how to make things to be artistic but needed a realistic way to still make money. I began learning iOS programming from videos on thenewboston.com (Bucky Roberts) which is a fantastic free resource; however, what I wanted to learn wasn't currently on there so I went to Udemy.com in search of more recent lectures. I found the Mark Price's (Devslopes) courses while looking around and browsing reviews.

Bradford: Staying current is so important, especially when it comes to Swift, right?

Divona: Yeah, because the language is in its early stages and constantly changing it is very important that you are watching videos and reading documentation on the most recent version of the language. I really liked that Devslopes videos were super current, released right as the new update came out.

Bradford: Was PokeRadar the first app you made, or did you make smaller ones first?

Divona: I eventually made a few small puzzle games, as well as a few click games, but was still a novice.

Bradford: Moving on to PokeRadar itself, can you explain what the app is and how you thought of it?

Divona: One day while playing Pokemon GO, which had just released a week earlier, I thought of making an application that was essentially a map where users could drop pins to mark where they found specific Pokemon at specific times. At the time, people were driving long distances to find specific ones, and there wasn't really any centralized way of communicating with large groups of players outside of Facebook groups. I also wanted to have user feedback to ensure that only the best, most accurate results were being displayed, so we added a voting system that allowed users to +1 posts that were legit and -1 posts they thought were fake. I have a friend who is far more talented as a developer and so I pitched him this idea.

Bradford: So that's your co-founder. How did you guys take it from idea to creation?

Divona: After gaming that day, we went back to my place and conceptualized what the app would need to do and what it would look like. We worked well into the night on the first draft and then I headed to sleep while my friend set up the back end of the application and finished off the last bit of the app itself.

Bradford: Did it start getting downloads right away or did you have to do a bit of marketing first?

Divona: Well, we spent the next day discussing how we should go about things and really get the word out there. I printed out cards with information I thought was relevant to the app and handed them out to anyone I saw playing. I also began infiltrating Pokemon Go groups on Facebook trying to spread the word about the app.

Bradford: What happened then? Was that successful?

Divona: Once things were up and running, I remember hanging out at the local Starbucks just refreshing the map to see what happened. It was incredible to see how fast the map was populated and how dense it became in such a short time. This was very short lived as not long after it began gaining traction, we began to experience server issues. Long story short we had a very odd way of looking up locations in our database and so we would overload things and then our app would dump everyone using it. Obviously, we didn't want blackouts, so the next few weeks were spent trying to figure out what we could do better.

Bradford: Oh man, how did you recover from that?

Divona: Well, having your friend wake you up at 4 am with a knock on your door after 15 missed calls takes a toll on you after a while, and we were most definitely strained. We brought in a few friends who were developers and from there some more friends-of-friends. Had it not been for this tight group of people, there is no way we would have experienced the success that we did.

Bradford: So that initial burst of success kind of validated the idea for you enough to bring on more people. Would you advise others to do something similar?

Divona: My advice to anyone looking into making a large scale project with a small team, prepare yourself. There is no time to test anything if the demand is high enough. You just have to make sure everything is as correct as possible and push the update. This is because every minute the service is down, people aren't using it. They may even uninstall it, or spread the word about it being broken. If you make anything that is at all close to this big, there will be problems, and you have to keep trying if you want it to work out. Several of our competitors hit the same wall that we did but luckily our team was able to persevere. There was no downtime for a solid month and a half until we sold it.

Bradford: How were you able to sell it so quickly? Were you approached or did you have a connection?

Divona: A small group of the more experienced developers who worked on it were employed by the company who purchased the app.

Bradford: After you sold it...what next?

Divona: I still needed to learn more. With the money made from the sale I was able to move to a new place, and really buckle down and learn. I was doing API development and iOS development as a freelance thing, but have since switched over to React and React Native. I would very much like to take on another giant project like PokeRadar, but we will see if that happens soon or not. It's all about looking for the right opportunity!

Bradford: Any other tips for aspiring app-builders?

Divona: When you're working with others, team communication is extremely important. Make sure there is regular communication and it is saved for reference. We used Slack, which is a fantastic service for this type of thing. Being able to catch up on what everyone else discussed hours earlier is incredibly great.

Laurence Bradford is a product manager at Teachable, an EdTech enthusiast, and the creator of Learn to Code With Me, a blog and podcast helping self-taught coders get ahead in their lives + careers.